Re: [Fwd: A Curious Article in Mercury]

[jg <jg@jgws.freeisp.co.uk>]

"Paul M. Rybski" wrote:

>       In the highly competitive world of reviewed astronomical and
> physics literature, it is pretty difficult for anyone who is making a
> fool of himself to get his works published.  Again, perhaps I am
> misunderstanding your statement.  Can you point me to reviewed
> journal articles which exemplify someone making an idiot of
> themselves?

I didn't consider B Yen to be speaking within the context of reviewed
articles from amateurs, nor did I mean it specifically with respect to
professionals.  Most of his quotes were from journals and telly progs,
which is where opinions are often espoused.

My last statement probably was a throw away line that should've been
thrown away, but I am frankly getting a bit pick sick of some of the
attitudes re amateurs merely on the grounds quoted, as they are
applicable across the board.

It's a while since I read up deeply on a specific topic, and that'd be
evolutionary change in LPVs as defined by their historic light curve
behaviour and pulsational properties.

Invariably over the past thirty to fourty years this has more or less
been a debate between two camps as to whether they are fundamental or
overtone pulsators.

Frequently the actual behaviour of historic LPV lightcurves is not
addressed.  Not only are these not addressed, but statements made about
the light curves are theory led and not supported by the light curves
themselves.

That's just one example I'm a bit more familiar with than usual.

Quite frankly, if professionals can write and publish journal articles
on LPVs stating things that can not be founded in the data they are
using, whilst simultaneously not deigning to describe phenomonology that
is readily apparent, then they fall with the same context as the
accusations being made about amateurs in the quotes B Yen supplied.

My current favourite example I can't provide a reference for, I more or
less picked it up in scientific orientatated web pages, pro-am ones and
official press releases, not general public stuff.

Gravimetric measures revealed a substantially large, previously unknown,
submerged impact crater in Australia. The professional authors were at
pains to note that the +/- 200 million years date range estimated for
this object covered the Permo-Triassic border.  That is, hinted at it
being the smoking gun of that mass extinction.  Maybe idiotic is a
stronger word where you come from than where I come from, silly might be
a better one.

Anyway, whilst fully aware that folk throwing money at things is not in
anyway a replacement for a little bit of knowledge, I am intrigued where
you demand specific examples of me, whereas the professionals quoted in
B Yen's lists of quotes could get away with generalities. ;)

As for refereeing in professional journals, always insist on at least
two (hopefully independent) referees.  That's my motto from now on.
Worked too.  I mean, you may ask about the use of the word idiotic, but
how can someone whose deemed expert in a field state that the
difficulties being experienced with a new mathematic analytical
technique for studying LPV light curves was flawed because it was based
on fourier analysis, yet in the next sentence strongly recommend that
wavelet analysis be used instead?  Our solution (my co-author and I) was
to insist on it being re-refereed.  Two new referees, both professionals
again this time (and not afraid to be unanonymous either this time)
actually gave praise for the paper.

Resorting to specific, albeit unreferenced, examples in this diatribe,
but hey, B Yen's quotes may have been referenced, but the quotes
themselves contained nonesuch.

I'm not frightened off by having the great spectre of the "refereed
professional journal" shoved in front of me.  I've followed too many
references from said to dead ends, despite supposed foundational value
for the paper they were in.

I'm not actually too upset about all that either.  It's when there're
noises that the amateurs, no matter of what
variety/flavour/quality/capability-(or lack thereof), have some ailment
that the professionals can't even catch, that I start getting noisy.

Reading that last line again, it is possible I may have taken the
original mail a bit more serious than I should've.  This would not be
entirely unprecedented.



My favourite amateur astronomer at the moment is Sebastian Otero.  I
reckon he ought to get some sort of funding grant/award for his work. 
Sebastian Otero goes out there and looks at stuff.  He checks the
catalogues.  He asks professionals for advice on topics, and is not
afraid to answer back when what they say does not tally with what the
star(s) do(es).  He finds things that turn out to be true, despite
initial, as sometimes expressed in a downright shitty attitude, negative
responses from profesionals.  It's all been there to see on the lists,
from delta Vel to delta Sco and probably beyond (I've not been watching
as close as I should of late).

I sometimes am very fond of the fact that some amateurs can come across
new stuff simply because they don't know any better.  Don't read that
wrong, Mr Otero obviously studies his topic, but appears not to suffer
from having too many preconceptions trained into him.  This sort of
thing, to me, makes up for all the other stuff that comes half baked
from the rest of us (yep, myself not even remotely excluded in the
latter group).  Of course, there's the dreaded crackpots too, but
they're soon identified.  Hmmm, set myself up with that last line....


Cheers

John G.

John Greaves (in full)

PS

And in final summary, I read the original post as full of amateur
bashing.

You possibly read my post as professional bashing.

What I am probably failing in conveying is that certain faults cannot be
specifically targeted at one or the other group.

I can never remember where to find that quote, I think from Shapeley,
maybe even Humason, I can't remember, about searching for fundamental
truths in the ghosts of errors themselves often larger than the
measurements.  Astronomers should have that (full proper quote) stamped
in reverse on their foreheads so they can read it every time they look
in a mirror.  The maths and physics astronomy utilises may be hard, it's
the data that's the delimiter.